After she struggled during the recent U.S. championships, Ashley Wagner is changing her free skate just weeks before the Olympics. / Greg M. Cooper, USA TODAY Sports

by Nancy Armour, USA TODAY Sports

by Nancy Armour, USA TODAY Sports

Ashley Wagner's struggles at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships might turn out to be a blessing.

Wagner is going back to last season's "Samson and Delilah" long program for the Sochi Olympics, dropping the "Romeo and Juliet" program with which she never got comfortable. She fell twice in the free skate at nationals, and her fourth-place finish put her spot on the U.S. Olympic team in doubt.

"I have been fighting (`Romeo and Juliet') the entire season," Wagner told USA Today Sports on Tuesday. "It's a beautiful program, but it just wasn't me. It was like oil and water. I'm much more comfortable in my own skin than I was with `Romeo and Juliet.'"

Switching programs less than three weeks before the Sochi Games begin is a big risk. But Wagner said she doesn't think she would have had a shot at a medal in Sochi had she kept "Romeo and Juliet."

Wagner favors big, bold characters, and she struggled to relate to Juliet. It doesn't help that, at 22, she's almost a decade older than the teenager.

"She's a soft and almost weak character. In competition, I felt that made me weak as well," Wagner said. "That was the biggest problem. I never found a way to turn Juliet into the strong, hard-headed fierce woman I wanted her to be because it's not who she is."

Wagner actually told coach Rafael Arutunian before the Grand Prix final that she wanted to switch programs, but he resisted. She finished third, but a fall in the long program didn't help in her efforts to embrace the program.

After struggling with "Romeo and Juliet" again at nationals, she was able to convince Arutunian that a change, risky as it might be, was worth it.

Wagner made the Sochi team ahead of Mirai Nagasu, the U.S. bronze medalist, based on her international success over the last two seasons.

"To be able to go back to Delilah, this feisty, strong, powerful woman, when I'm on the ice in my opening pose, that's where I'm going to feel the strongest," Wagner said.

And it's hard to argue with Wagner's results with "Delilah." She won her second consecutive U.S. title last year, along with a silver medal at the Grand Prix final. She was fifth at the world championships, helping the U.S. women earn a third spot in Sochi.

"I fell in love with this character last year," Wagner said. "It feels like this is what I'm meant to do in Sochi."